Offensive On Defense
Proposed Defense Department closings and redeployment will have serious
ramifications on the American working class.

Among the more
than 18,000 civilian positions being outright eliminated are good-paying,
unionized blue collar jobs–such as the navy yard facilities in Groton and
Portsmouth–that simply can’t be replaced in the current economy. I’ve gone
through a couple of plant closings. I’ve seen how lost income and the resulting
feelings of insecurity and despair are too often accompanied by drinking binges,
domestic violence, divorce, suicides.

Workers whose
jobs are being shifted elsewhere are, in some cases, entitled to transfer with
their work to its new venue–if they are able to pick up and relocate. That can
be especially daunting for two bread-winner households with kids in school.

Others may
have bumping rights to remaining jobs--though this is complicated by the new
union-busting NSPS rules in the process of being implemented.

But Defense
workers and their families won’t be the only ones affected. There are a host of
environmental concerns as well.

The day before
the announcement of the latest round of closings the EPA issued a report showing
34 closed military bases already on the Superfund list of worst toxic waste
sites. Most of them have been closed for more than 15 years and little or
nothing has been done to them. There are more than a hundred other abandoned DoD
sites that have been only partially cleaned up.

Even where
toxic time-bombs are not left behind movement of offices and services can
aggravate other environmental problems. For example, the Washington Post
wrote, "The Pentagon's plan to move tens of thousands of jobs from Metro
[subway]-accessible urban centers to campuses outside the Capital Beltway will
exacerbate the region's traffic, destabilize the real estate market and flood
already crowded schools, local planners and elected leaders say."

These
announced closings have resulted in targeting workers who need our solidarity
and threatening social and environmental problems of urgent concern to all. A
response is required. But what should we be demanding?

Let’s look at
one challenge: It is hard not to be troubled by the product line made and
maintained by the brothers and sisters at the New London Navy base in
Groton--nuclear submarines.

These boats
(in Navy parlance all surface vessels are ships but submarines are boats) are
quite remarkable. They can remain submerged, if necessary, for months at a
time--limited only by the crew’s food supply. They mainly just cruise randomly,
deep and undetectable, throughout all the oceans.

Their primary
mission is quite simple. They are secure mobile launching platforms for missiles
armed with nuclear war heads. Collectively they carry enough firepower to
destroy all life on our planet several times over. They are the ultimate weapon
of mass destruction.

We are brought
back once more to a question that the working class has struggled with for more
than a half-century now: Must we choose keeping good jobs tied to the insanity of
preparing for nuclear annihilation as the sole alternative to treating Defense
workers as disposable? Or can we offer other options to utilize the
skills of these workers for something useful?

This is a
question requiring more space than available in this column. I have begun
drafting an article about the issues relating to this challenge that I believe
need discussion–and action–in the labor, peace, and environmental movements. I
hope to post this article soon.

Quality Of Life Issues In Iraq
It’s been over two years now since Bush and Blair sent the GIs and Tommies to
"liberate" Iraq. We all know of the continuing bloodshed in that long-suffering
land. But how are the Iraqis doing otherwise under the occupation of their
"liberators?" A UN survey published last week noted that 85 percent of Iraqis
complain of frequent power outages, only 54 percent have access to clean water
and almost a quarter of Iraqi children suffer from chronic malnutrition. "The
survey, in a nutshell, depicts a rather tragic situation of the quality of
life," they concluded.

Support Building For United Actions Against
War
I’m pleased to report that the Kansas City Iraq Task force and Kansas City
Peaceworks are among the groups recently signing on to US Labor Against the
War’s call for united demonstrations against the Iraq war in the Fall.

Catching Up With Reagan Legacy
Ronald Reagan was consulting astrologers in the White House the last time real
wages fell as fast as reported for the year ending in March. Inflation rose 3.1
percent against a 2.4 percent increase in wages.